It wasn't really a holiday sale. It was a leftover sale in the worst possible way.

The game-used stuff in the home clubhouse was junk -- game-issued jerseys never worn that were priced as if they were. Bats best for firewood. Autographed balls with smudged signatures on balls with huge stickers on them.

The assorted items in the visitors clubhouse were limited. Plenty of Buehrle and Ramirez bobbleheads for $20 apiece. A few Fisk statues for $25 that were gobbled up quickly. Game-used baseballs for $10 or three for $25. Yo-yos, bracelets, Buehrle perfect game and Fisk collectible pictures on a $1 table. Bowling shirts for $25, aprons for $10 and chest-protector backpacks for $10. I think the ever-present mystery bags were $20.

The various sales the Sox have over the course of the season really vary from sale to sale and year to year. You never know how each one is going to be until you show up. Last year's holiday sale was a collecting bonanza in both clubhouses. This year's was pretty worthless. I guess you win some and lose some.

The crowd was surprisingly large. The line was still very long outside the park when I left a little after 11 a.m. The clubhouses aren't big to begin with and they were cramped with all the people in them. The checkout line in the visitors clubhouse moved extemely slowly with only one cash and one credit checkout worker. For that reason, the line to enter the clubhouse moved at a snail's pace. The sale should be run much better.

On a pathetic note, a couple wack jobs toward the front of the line ran past everyone to the game-used items when fans were let inside the park. One college-aged clown did so for the second-straight sale. He was later spotted in the visitors clubhouse disrespecting the line again and acting like a bull in a china shop, at one point ignoring a woman in a wheel chair as he moved through her to snare some items on a table. One woman just positioned herself near the front of the line outside the park, had two or three people join her minutes before we were let inside, and then ran past everyone. What kind of people act like this? Sad to say, it's time for the Sox to station a security guard or two outside these sales to uphold the integrity of the line. Line order should also be preserved on the way inside.

This is what gets me mad. These were all giveaways that were provided to the Sox by a sponsor for free and the Sox are turning around and selling them. I guarantee that there were fans who went to those games and did not get the giveaway because they were "out" but now they mysteriously appear at the sale. How about just giving out the "extra" kids chest protector backpacks to the kids at the next game? It would make a kid extremely happy to get a giveaway when they were not expecting it. Instead, the Sox just want to make a buck.